'UMPERIAL' AMERICA?

Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman, American Umpire (Cambridge, Massachusetts, & London, England: Harvard U. Press, 2013) ("The Western values that the United States was later sometimes accused of pushing onto an unwilling, culturally different world were, in fact, global ones that led to a new world order. The United States acted as an umperial power in this new order. Although empire is not a perfect metaphor, it describes the U.S. function in global affairs more accurately than the outdated but widely used term 'empire.' It also illumines the historical costs, consequences, and contradictions of such a role." Id. at 3. "In it, this book suggests, Washington sometimes exerts a unique, controversial, and (probably) temporary authority that arises from America's particular historical experience, but in defense of values that have become common. In other words, the United States does not merely impose on others what George Kennan once famously dismissed as America's provincial (and dangerously delusional) 'moralistic-legalistic' view of the international life." Id. at 6. "In recounting the tale of foreign relations from 176 to the present, this book teases out three goals or practices that gradually transcended ancient differences and pushed both the United States and the rest of the world in the direction of democratic capitalism. These are access to opportunity, arbitration of disputes, and transparency in government and business. Such terms do not have the emotive appeal (or historical baggage) of 'life, liberty, and ... happiness,' but perhaps partly for that reason they may help us better understand how these broad trends worked in a variety of cultural contexts." Id. at 6. "Few principles apply all the time. But it is nonetheless helpful to identify general forces underlying modern history, so long as they can be concretely documented and we accept that they do not account for all that happened in the past or guarantee what happens next. [] Each generation confronts its own dangers. To observe that democratic capitalism prevailed is not to say that it is the final or best system, as others may yet emerge. There is not triumphal or comforting 'end of history'." Id. at 5. "The United States is no paragon of virtue and has almost invariably fallen short of its rhetoric and aspirations. American citizens are sometimes embarrassingly boastful and ambitious, calling their country 'the greatest nation in the world.' as if all others do not have the same pride or cannot overhear. Like other great powers, Washington has sometimes acted like a bully as well. The U.S. government can be callous, foolish, and self-serving in the extreme--all of which should be unsurprising given human nature. This does not make it an empire, nor does it mean that America's highest ideals are hollow illusions. It is naive to assume that ideals are incompletely realized because people do not genuinely believe in them. Ideals are like laws: behavioral codes that are violated constantly but still important, influential, and indicative. Without them, we have no compass." Id. at 19-20. "Methods affected outcomes. Britain chose physical violence in China, and the local government chose to ignore what it could learn from the West. China became less stable and prosperous in subsequent decades. The Americans used persuasion in Japan, and the local government adopted new practices for its own purposes. Japan became a world power within forty years. Japanese and American methods more closely anticipated the patterns of the future than did those of the other two countries. All of them, however, were headed toward a more accessible, less controllable world." Id. at 117. "Calling the United States an  empire has yielded not practicable solutions because the nation and the world system in which it its are simply not structured in that way. The nation cannot stop being something it is not. [] A more realistic, evidence-based diagnosis is that the United States is the enforcer of what is, most of the time, the collective will: the maintenance of a world system with relatively open trade borders, in which arbitration and economic sanctions are the preferred methods of keeping the peace and greater and greater numbers of people have at least some political rights. When sanctions and incentives fail, the United States is (generally speaking) expected to step up. It easily and too often exceeds its authority in doing so because it has none, under the present system." The Truman Doctrine: "The president then delivered the crucial line. 'I believe that it must be the poicy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting atempted subjugation by armed minorities or outside pressures,' Truman asserted. The United States would spend the next six decdes attempting to reach thais bar." Id. at 288. "Nonetheless, domestic and international expectations create real tensions. Other nations demand a response to economic and physical threats, and Americans do so as well. [] The United States must financially and militarily defend those 'resisting attempted subjugation,. This burdens America's army, economy, and psyche. In 2010, the percentage of U.S. GDP devoted to defense was double, triple, even quadruple that spent by its allies in Europe and the Americas. In Ireland and Iceland, students went to university for free, while young Americans accumulated enormous college debts simply to qualify for work. The Truman Doctrine lives on." "It does not have to. If the American public wishes to reevaluate this national commitment, the logical questions to ask are: What would happen if the United States ceased to fulfill this role in the world? Can the role be eliminated? If not, who else might perform it? How can the United States persuade another nation, group of nations, or supranational body to undertake the responsibility, with minimal loss of global amity and stability? Can America exercise the best kind of leadership by creating a new leader?" "Alternatively, the United States might choose to continue playing umpire. If no other entity is willing to do so, and the United States still is, yet other questions cry for attention. What should be the quid pro quo? To what extent, if any, should it receive exemptions from rules it expects others to follow, because of the vulnerability to which this role exposes the nation--or do such exemptions breed arrogance? What is the significance of the fact that the U.S. Congress, a democratic assembly, does not always ratify schemes of international cooperation championed by the president (from the Versailles Treaty, for example, to the Kyoto Protocol on Global Warming)? What, specifically, should the United States seek to 'get' from playing umpire--financially, strategically, or psychologically? These are difficult questions, but at least they have answers." Id. at 336-337. This is a must read for anyone who wants to think seriously about the United States's role in the world.).